Fazerdaze

+ Marble Gods + Joyce Delaney + The RPMs

Last year, New Zealand's Fazerdaze (aka Amelia Murray) independently put out the single "Little Uneasy" as well as a self-titled EP, and promised herself to release a debut LP in 2017 – and now the details are here! Her debut LP Morningside will be available via esteemed label Flying Nun Records on 5 May 2017. Premiered via Gorilla vs Bear, the new single 'Lucky Girl' was written and recorded by Murray herself in her living room and is the most complete document of her intricate songwriting to date.

As Amelia explains: "I wrote and recorded this track while I was living in a room that had no windows - except for a skylight which I eventually had to block out to stop my room from overheating. It was so dark in there and I slowly began to feel sad, like the walls were enclosing on me - that’s how I got the idea for the first lyric!"

Fazerdaze has been praised by NME, played with Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Connan Mockasin, and was invited to join the Red Bull Music Academy in Montreal in 2016. In May, Murray will take her band to the UK to play The Great Escape Festival and Live at Leeds, and will play further dates around the UK and Europe (tba).

Named after the New Zealand suburb where Murray finally feels at home, Morningside plots its course carefully through the rocky terrain of finding place and peace in personal growth. Growing pains are central to the album and Murray’s meditations on the concurrent exhilaration and intimidation of an older kind of life and love never feel cloying. Instead, on every track, Murray builds an intimate relationship with the listener. Each song is personal, but never isolating. The album is like reading someone’s journal with their express permission: at turns it seems full of the most universal of feelings, as well as the kind of sensory and narrative details that make for the truest kind of memoir.

Line Up

The brainchild of Amelia Murray, Fazerdaze began as a string of bedroom recordings created late in the night, emerging fully-formed in 2014 as her debut eponymous EP. A succinct collection of intimate, beautifully produced dream pop written, produced and performed by Murray with final touches added by Jonathan Pearce (Watercolours, Anthonie Tonnon) it’s a significant first outing for the young New Zealander. Layers of softly crunching guitars make up a swirling textural bed over consistently driving drum machines, and sparse electronica. Murray’s delicate vocals cut with precision through the haze, evoking the intimacy of the domestic space in which the songs were created.

The EP quickly took flight, receiving critical acclaim from blogs and publications around the globe. NME described it as ‘elegant dream pop’, while US blog HillyDilly exclaimed that ‘Fazerdaze transports us to a warm, optimistic sonic space with her glistening synths and mellow acoustic guitar strums’. NZ’s Sunday Star Times listed it in their Best of 2014 spread, hailing it as a ‘versatile collection of pop songs... with Murray’s yearning, reverb- drenched vocals echoing around pronounced electric guitars.'

2015 saw Fazerdaze and her band shift to another level, opening the New Zealand Silver Scroll Awards with her cover of Marlon Williams’ Dark Child as well as supporting and touring international acts like Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Luna and Milky Chance. With a debut album ready for 2016, this is just the beginning for Amelia Murray and Fazerdaze.